The Liberation of Paris Page 16

  “They’re falling back!” shouted a Frenchman.

  “After them!” Mahoney screamed, running toward the Germans and firing his machine gun.

  The Frenchmen followed, the sounds of their gunfire echoing throughout the depths of the old building.

  In an interrogation room, Lieutenant Grunberger and the Countess de Chaulieu were chained to the wall. Bruno Goerdler was heating up a poker at the little furnace, and Major Kurt Richter paced back and forth with his hands on his hips.

  “I’m going to give you one more chance,” he said to Grunberger. “What information did you pass to this French whore?”

  Grunberger was bleeding from the lips and his eyes darted about like a frightened wild animal. His hands were shackled above his head and he looked at Delphine who was shackled the same way, the front of her blouse torn and her breasts exposed.

  Richter stopped and gave Grunberger a backhand. “Speak!”

  “I didn’t tell her anything!”

  “Liar!” Richter punched him in the mouth. “Pig!” He kicked him in the stomach.

  Grunberger clenched his teeth to keep from crying out. Sweat poured down his face but he didn’t want to give Richter the satisfaction of knowing he was hurting him. Grunberger wished feverishly that he could break loose from his chains and attack Richter with his bare hands. He’d never been a violent person and always had despised the thought of fighting, but now he was enraged that a person like Richter could exist and wanted to tear him apart.

  Goerdler removed the poker from the furnace and raised it in the air. Its point was red-hot. “It’s ready sir,” Goerdler said with a mad grin.

  Richter pointed at the red-hot poker. “Do you see that, you stinking traitor?” he said to Grunberger.

  Grunberger looked at it but did not reply. Richter reached to the side and prodded his forefinger into Delphine’s left breast.

  “If you don’t tell me what you told her,” Richter said, “I shall have my assistant burn a hole through this boob.”

  The thought of that atrocity made Grunberger struggle against his chains. “No!”

  “No?” Richter asked with a grin. He looked at Delphine who was trembling uncontrollably. “What did he tell you?”

  “Nothing,” she replied, her lips quivering with terror.

  “We’ll soon see about that,” Richter said, placing his hands on his hips and taking a few steps backwards. “Bruno?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Do it.”

  “Yes sir.”

  Bruno plunged the poker back into the hot coals, and let it rest there for a few minutes. The heat of the fire made perspiration drip down his face and torso. His eyes were narrowed to slits and he smiled contentedly because he was a man who loved his work.

  He pulled the poker out of the fire, and it glowed cherry-red. He advanced toward Delphine, holding the poker in front of him like a sword. Richter stepped to the side so he could get a clear view of the poker burning into Delphine’s breast.

  “This is your last chance,” Richter said, hoping they’d continue to be stubborn so he could torture them for a while.

  Neither said anything. Delphine could feel the heat of the poker as it neared her breast. Sweat poured down her face and her head sagged forward as she fainted.

  “Should I revive her, sir?” asked Bruno.

  “Yes,” replied Richter, because he loved to hear the screams.

  Bruno plunged the poker back into the hot coals, filled a bucket with cold water from the sink in the corner, and flung it over Delphine. The water plastered her thin cotton skirt against her shapely figure, and she slowly raised her chin from her chest. Bruno withdrew the hot poker from the fire and advanced toward her again. Richter’s eyes glittered with pleasure as the poker drew closer to Delphine’s breast. Richter loved to see people being tortured because it made life intense and fascinating.

  “I’ll talk!” shouted Grunberger, who couldn’t stand it anymore.

  “No—don’t!” cried Delphine.

  Richter felt his mind being pulled in two directions. One part of him wanted to get the information, but the other part wanted to see the elegant French countess writhing and screaming. He frowned. “Talk!” he barked.

  “No!” screamed Delphine, and began sobbing uncontrollably.

  Richter gave her a backhand across the mouth. Her head snapped to the side and she continued crying wildly, evidently having a nervous breakdown of some kind. Richter turned to Grunberger. “Well?”

  Grunberger bit his lower lip. He wanted to tell Richter everything so that Delphine could be saved, but if Delphine didn’t want to be saved?

  “Speak!” Richter shrieked, punching Grunberger in the mouth.

  Grunberger’s head snapped back and hit the brick wall, then dropped forward. He was still and Richter realized he’d knocked Grunberger unconscious.

  “Shit!” Richter growled between clenched teeth, punching the palm of his hand.

  Suddenly the sound of gunfire could be heard in the corridor.

  Richter spun around. “What’s that?”

  Bruno Goerdler, trying to figure out what was going on, knitted his eyebrows together. He moved in long strides toward the door, opened it, and looked out into the corridor.

  The sound of gunfire was much louder with the door open, and Goerdler’s eyes goggled at the incredible sight before him. French civilians and an American soldier were charging down the far end of the corridor, machine-gunning the few SS guards who stood in their way.

  Goerdler slammed the door shut and threw the bolt. “It can’t be!” he said, an expression of horror on his face.

  “What is it?” Richter asked, turning pale as he suspected the truth.

  “We’re under attack!” Goerdler said. “French civilians and American soldiers are in the corridor!”

  Richter heard machine-gun fire and the sound of people running. Spinning around, he looked at Delphine and Grunberger chained to the wall and wondered if he should kill them both while he had the chance. Then reason overtook him and he thought that if the maquis found him with two dead prisoners in a torture chamber, they’d probably skin him alive. He’d have a better chance if Delphine and Grunberger were unharmed, he thought.

  Someone tried the doorknob from the outside. Richter and Goerdler looked at each other in alarm. Delphine was hysterical and confused, and Grunberger was still out like a light.

  They heard the roar of machine-gun fire at close range, and then the door splintered before their eyes. Richter reached for his service pistol and Goerdler grabbed the red-hot poker. A huge man in the uniform of the American Army burst through the door. Goerdler raised the poker to slug the American soldier, but the soldier pivoted quickly and fired a burst from a Schmeisser machine gun at Goerdler. The bullets caught Goerdler in the stomach and ripped his innards apart. Goerdler fell backwards, trying to plug the holes with his hands, but he was dead by the time he hit the floor.

  Mahoney spun toward Richter, who dropped his pistol to the floor.

  “I surrender!” Richter said, shaking from head to foot. “I demand that you treat me according to the provisions of the Geneva Convention!”

  Mahoney pulled the trigger of his machine gun, but it clicked—out of ammunition. Mahoney charged Richter with the empty machine gun, and Richter backpedaled, looking at Mahoney’s angry face and suddenly realizing that this American soldier looked exactly like the Frenchman who’d kicked him in the face in Normandy!

  “No!” Richter screamed.

  Mahoney slugged Richter over the head with the butt of his machine gun, and Richter dropped to his knees, blood pouring from the gash in his hair. He fell backwards and Mahoney stomped him twice on the face, flattening Richter’s new nose and cracking a few teeth.

  Mahoney looked up and saw the man and woman chained to the wall. He heard fighting in the corridor behind him but decided to stay a few more moments and free them. He advanced toward the woman, whose graceful bosom was naked and quivering
, and unsnapped the catch on the shackle. Her hands fell loose and she dropped to her knees on the floor.

  Mahoney picked her up and propped her against the wall. “Are you all right?” he asked in French.

  “Yes . . . I think so,” she said weakly. “You are American?”

  “Yes ma’am.” He rubbed her wrists which had deep red marks on them from the shackles.

  “I have something important to tell you!” she said urgently.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  Her face was white and her eyes bugged out of their sockets. “You must stop Karl!” she said.

  “Who’s Karl?” Mahoney asked as he moved to the side and unshackled Grunberger, who dropped to the floor in a heap.

  Delphine bent over Grunberger and rolled him onto his back then looked up at Mahoney. “Karl is a deadly weapon,” she explained. “It fires a two-ton shell four miles and each shell can destroy a city block. It’s on its way to Paris right now—to the Gare de l’Est—because Hitler wants to demolish Paris!”

  “Demolish Paris?” Mahoney repeated, fearing that all the city’s wonderful whorehouses might be destroyed before he even got to them. “Where did you get this information?”

  “From him,” she said, touching Grunberger’s face tenderly. “He is a German officer on General von Choltitz’s staff, and he told me about Karl. I tried to get word to the maquis, but the SS arrested me and then they arrested him.” She jumped to her feet and grabbed Mahoney’s shoulders. “Please—you must notify your army! You must stop Karl!”

  Mahoney looked at her and realized the whorehouses of Paris were in grave danger. “Sure,” he replied. “I’ll do everything I can.” He wrinkled his forehead and wondered what he could do to stop Karl.

  Cranepool, Colonel Chambord, and a few other Frenchmen entered the room and stared at the bizarre scene.

  “What’s going on in here?” Chambord asked.

  “You must stop Karl!” Delphine screamed, and then fainted because the excitement was too much for her. She collapsed on top of Grunberger.

  “They both need medical attention,” Mahoney said. He pointed at the unconscious Richter. “That fucker is still alive.”

  “Who’s Karl?” Chambord asked.

  “It’s the name of a big artillery piece that is on its way to the Gare de l’Est to destroy Paris. We’ve got to stop it somehow. I guess the best way to do that is for me to radio the American Army and have them send the Air Corps on a bombing raid over all the railway routes heading toward Paris. Do you have a radio?”

  Chambord shook his head. “No.”

  “Do you know where I can find one?”

  “Not offhand.”

  “Hey Sarge,” said Cranepool. “All we have to do is find the French 12th Armored Division. They’ll have some radios.”

  Mahoney nodded. “That’s true, and the Hammerhead Division should be showing up sooner or later with radios too. In fact, they might be here already. The only problem is—where the hell are they and the French 12th?” He looked at Colonel Chambord. “Do you know?”

  Chambord shook his head. “No.”

  Mahoney looked at Cranepool. “Then we’ll have to go out and find them.”

  “Let’s go.”

  Mahoney turned to Chambord. “Everyone must try to get this message through to Allied headquarters in Laval.”

  “We’ll do our best.”

  “By the way, did you find any American pilots in here?”

  “American pilots? No, I do not think so.” Chambord looked at one of the Frenchmen with him, and the Frenchman shook his head. “No,” Chambord said to Mahoney, “evidently there were no American pilots here.”

  Mahoney cleared his throat and spit a lunger onto the floor. He had joined the attack on 74 Avenue Foch because there were supposed to be American prisoners in its dungeons; but now he realized the French probably had told him that only so he’d join them. He’d exposed himself to danger for nothing, but at least he’d found out about Karl.

  “Let’s go, Cranepool,” he said. “We’ve got to find us a radio.”

  Mahoney and Cranepool left the dungeon room and began their long ascent to the street.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Armored members of the Resistance milled around in front of 74 Avenue Foch celebrating their conquest of Gestapo headquarters. They drank wine and cognac and swaggered about victoriously. A pretty young girl waved shyly at Cranepool and he waved back. Mahoney grabbed Cranepool by the collar and pulled him toward the street.

  “Look at you,” Mahoney growled. “Here we are with something important to do and all you can think about is fucking around with broads.”

  Cranepool shook loose from Mahoney’s grip. “All I did was wave.”

  “If I didn’t grab you, you probably would have run off with her.”

  “No I wouldn’t, Sarge. We got something important to do. We gotta save Paris.”

  “Don’t you forget it,” Mahoney told him.

  Carrying their German submachine guns, they walked down the street and came to a square with a statue of Napoleon in the center. They walked to the center of the square and stood underneath the statue, listening to shooting and explosions coming from all directions.

  “I wonder where the Hammerheads are?” Mahoney said.

  “They must be where the fighting is,” Cranepool replied.

  “Not necessarily, asshole. The maquis are fighting the Germans too. If we head toward the fighting, we’re liable to wind up with more maquis who don’t have radios either.”

  “Gee, I don’t know what to tell you, Sarge,” Cranepool said.

  “I know you don’t, asshole.”

  Mahoney took off his helmet and scratched his head. The trouble was that he didn’t know where to go himself. He had to find a radio because Karl was on its way to Paris, and if it wasn’t stopped it would destroy Paris and all its whorehouses forever.

  He looked down a street and saw a sign that said: HOTEL RITZ. That reminds me of something, he thought. He put his helmet back on his head and suddenly it hit him. That big American war correspondent with the mustache had said he’d buy Mahoney a drink if Mahoney ever showed up at the Hotel Ritz. Mahoney wondered if the correspondent might be there now. Correspondents had ways to communicate with their newspapers and maybe that correspondent could help them get word to Bradley’s headquarters about Karl.

  “Let’s go,” Mahoney said, heading toward the Ritz.

  “Where to?” Cranepool asked, falling in beside him.

  “That hotel over there.”

  “What’s there?”

  “A friend of mine.”

  They crossed the square and walked down the street toward the Ritz, in front of which some armed maquis were standing guard over a group of young women whose heads were shaved.

  “Hey—what’s going on?” Mahoney asked one of the maquis.

  The man pointed with his thumb at the women. “They have been sleeping with Nazis, and we’re going to run them out of town.”

  “Oh.”

  Mahoney shrugged and with Cranepool behind him, climbed the steps to the hotel. They entered the lobby, where maquis were lying around on sofas and chairs, sleeping or getting drunk.

  “Which way is the bar?” Mahoney asked one of them.

  The man pointed with his bottle of cognac, and Mahoney strolled toward the bar. He and Cranepool entered the bar and saw that it was packed with men and women in correspondents’ uniforms, plus a lot of civilians. Everybody was drinking and shouting—it was a huge celebration. Mahoney looked over the women and decided he might not mind sticking his dick into a few of them, but he had more important things to do.

  Standing at the bar, which had a huge American flag was unfurled behind it, the American correspondent Mahoney had seen on the road to Paris a few days ago was drinking straight whisky out of a glass. The correspondent towered over the men and women around him, and Mahoney figured he was quite a popular fellow. He hesitated to go to him, but
he needed help. Moving toward the big correspondent, he realized that he had forgotten the man’s name.

  “Mahoney!” roared the correspondent, and Mahoney nearly jumped out of his combat boots.

  “You son of a bitch you made it!” the correspondent bellowed. He pushed people away from the bar. “Make way for my friend Mahoney! I’m gonna buy him a drink!” He extended his big ham hand toward Mahoney. “How’re you doing, feller!”

  “Not bad,” Mahoney replied, shaking the correspondent’s hand. “This here’s my friend, Corporal Ed Cranepool.”

  “How ya doing, Cranepool!” The correspondent shook Cranepool’s hand. “My name’s Hemingway, Ernie Hemingway.” He dropped his glass on the bar and said, “I’ll have another one of these, and how about you, Mahoney?”

  “Whisky straight, with a water back.”

  “Scotch whisky all right?”

  “Not if they got bourbon.”

  “No, there’s no bourbon in Paris yet, Mahoney.”

  “Then I’ll take whatever they got.”

  The bartender poured the drinks and Hemingway introduced Mahoney and Cranepool to the war correspondents nearby, but Mahoney forgot the names as soon as he heard them. The bartender finished pouring the whisky and Mahoney raised his glass in the air and tossed it down. It was smoky and smooth— good stuff.

  “Have another,” Hemingway said.

  “I gotta talk to you about something,” Mahoney replied.

  Hemingway smiled and gulped down half his whisky. “Tell me after you’ve had the next drink.”

  “But it’s important.”

  “Three minutes either way won’t make any difference.”

  “True,” Mahoney agreed, watching the bartender pour him another drink. When the bartender pulled the bottle away, Mahoney lifted the glass and drained it dry. “Ah,” he said, wiping the back of his mouth.